In Pictures: the Festival of Britain

In 1951, the Festival of Britain invited the whole country to welcome a bright, progress-filled future

ANCHORS AWAY The boating lake at the Festival of Britain Pleasure Grounds in London’s Battersea Park – where the less serious festival activities take place – proves a popular draw as Britons, after years of austerity and stringency, joyfully take to the water.

ALALMY X2, GETTY X2, PRESS ASSOCIATION X1

A TONIC FOR THE NATION

AT A GLANCE

Held exactly 100 years after the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Festival of Britain was an attempt to pull the country out of its postwar slump and to celebrate an imminent era of reconstruction. Held over a four-month period, it saluted British endeavour in the fields of science, technology, the arts, architecture and engineering.